... it's not easy, I'll admit, but it is totally doable and fun. And apart from the enjoyment and all the gorgeous views, kids learnthings from a hike in the mountains. Getting somewhere that can't be reached without effort, learning to savor the slow pace of mountain walking, and enduring the effort inherent in walking up a steep mountainside: all this is a good experience, and gives children a real sense of achievement when they finally reach that secluded mountain lake or meadow that looked so close on the map.
We planned our hikes together (and small hikes they were, considering Rebecca's age). They had to include some water.
The swift-flowing Alpine rivers - often milky white from glacier melt-water - and the still lakes reflecting the pines and the sky were good goals to reach: often concealed until the last moment behind the shoulder of a hill or in the depths of the woods, and such a welcome surprise when they finally appeared!
And how about the frequent stops along the way to have one more taste of chocolate? It was Swiss chocolate, after all, and we're constantly telling our children how important it is to try local delicacies!
It was the long walk that we took on our last day, though, that impressed the boys most. We followed a trail that chronicled the retreat of a glacier from 1878 to 2008: meter by meter we walked down the newly-emptied glacial valley, a haunting walk where the green vegetation give away to the gray glacial moraine, and on to the ever-retreating glacier terminus, which had withdrawn roughly 1.6 miles since people started measuring it. (There's a detailed web site dedicated to the variation in length and mass of Swiss glaciers here).
Nicholas especially was quite upset, and on the way back could talk about nothing else but how to solve our environmental dilemmas. He came up with many ideas, ranging from packing up all the carbon dioxide on a rocket and firing it into outer space, down to more modest options like adopting a tree. As I talked to him, I realized that I was trying much too hard to show him what progress my generation was already making in preserving the environment. While another part of me was thinking: what kind of world are we leaving to our children?
